PROFILE

François Bonnici is a medical doctor and the former founding Director of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, in partnership with the Bertha Foundation. The Bertha Centre has rapidly become a leading platform towards advancing the discourse and systemic impact of social innovation in Africa. He is now an Associate Fellowship of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School.

His career spans 20 years in clinical medicine, humanitarian programmes, public-private partnerships, and innovative social change initiatives, during which he has been recognised as a Rhodes Scholar; Archbishop Tutu African Leadership Fellow and WEF Global Leadership Fellow.

He has taught extensively at graduate and executive levels at the University of Cape Town, and at the University of Oxford and Harvard Kennedy School, and leads the most popular Coursera MOOC on Social Innovation and has published in articles, reviews, cases and opinion pieces on social innovation and health.

Francois attained his MBChB medical degree from University of Cape Town with the gold medal as the top graduate; a Masters in Public Health and Epidemiology from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and a MBA with the Saïd prize as the top overall graduate from University of Oxford's Saïd Business School.

He is a board member of the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, and is currently on sabbatical working on a book about the systemic work of social entrepreneurs.